Yep. I saw the one where the engine and the life support shut down. I definitely like the character of Mal. It was also a well put together flashback/backstory episode. Very nice. Looking forward to the next one.

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Interests:I *used* to be an environmental scientist, until I married a DoDDs teacher in 1997. Since then, I have been living in, and traveling around, Europe (First the UK, now Germany).

My hobbies are all the "usual suspects" for those interested in re-enacting and Golden Age of Piracy stuff.... but I have drifted away from the pirate scene as my location and young family don't allow for any more than "virtual" pirate participation. Besides Piracy, I am into Reverend Guitars and Vintage Corvettes.

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Interests:My name is William Pace and I live and work as a graphic designer, illustrator and photographer in Northern Utah. I'm married to the lovely Tracy Pace and we have three children. In addition to all things art, I enjoy traveling and meeting new people from every walk of life. I've always been a fan of history, theology, and of course, Pyracy.

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Interests:My name is William Pace and I live and work as a graphic designer, illustrator and photographer in Northern Utah. I'm married to the lovely Tracy Pace and we have three children. In addition to all things art, I enjoy traveling and meeting new people from every walk of life. I've always been a fan of history, theology, and of course, Pyracy.

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Ok, I've watched them all the way up through the one where they're defending the whorehouse and Inara apparently leaves. (Now she's a wuss hooker with a heart of gold.)

I always wonder about these "David and Maddie/Moonlighting" sorts of relationships that on-going series love to adopt. The fans champ at the bit for the two "will they/won't they" leads to get together and then are all disappointed when they do because the romantic and sexual tension is dissipated. If you drag it out for too long, however, the whole thing becomes pointless. It just always seems like a risky platform on which to build a show. (Although Moonlighting lasted for 5 seasons, so what do I know?) I have Serenity on order to find out what happens (because it must have been so exciting that I forgot.)

The show does get better as it goes along, though. I think this is mainly because of development of Mal's character. I notice Jayne has pretty much become comedy relief with a (small) side of dangerous. I guess that's a good place to put him. The cool chick and her husband are still cardboard and out of place respectively. (I liked the "War" episode, but where did all this alleged history of discord between those two characters come from? Every other episode they're all lovey-dovey...) The relationship between the doctor and the mechanic could have been interesting, if they didn't get too high school with it. Alas, I guess we'll never know. (Seems to me that that was addressed in Serenity as well.)

So I have only the last one to watch. I hope they do something good with River like Blackjohn hinted. She's still the most interesting character of the group. (They took out her Amygdala! That's just silly - she'd probably be non-functional instead of dysfunctional. Still, it's sort of any interesting idea if you don't think about it too much.)

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The last episode was great! Definitely one of the best in the series, although I am slightly more partial to the one where the life support was shutting down. An overly talkative, philosophical bounty hunter! Whee! (I was thinking, "This guy would be absolutely great if he didn't talk quite so much and two minutes later River noted the same thing and the bounty hunter agreed! ) They teased us with a little more doctor/Kaylee romance and we even get to see River's schizophrenic little girl happy self. Cool.

I watched the deleted scenes and I noticed that they cut a really good, character defining scene for Zoe from the premier episode. I suspect leaving that bit in would have made her character a little less cardboard for me. I also thought it was interesting that the guy who played Jayne referenced Tuco as a source for his character. (So I was on the right track before when I noted that he was comedy relief with a (small) side of dangerous.)

"...wanted in fifteen counties of this state, the condemned standing before us... sitting before us... Tuco Benedicto Pacifico Juan Maria Ramirez has been found guilty by the third district circuit court of the following crimes: Murder, assaulting a justice of the peace, raping a virgin of the white race, statutory rape of a minor of the black race... derailing a train in order to rob the passengers, bank robbery, highway robbery, robbing an unknown number of Post Offices, breaking out of the state prison, using marked cards and loaded dice, promoting prostitution, blackmail, intention of selling fugitive slaves, and counterfeiting. Crimes against places of high authority include burning down the courthouse and sheriff's office in Sonora. The accused is also guilty of cattle rustling, horse thievery, supplying Indians with firearms... misrepresenting himself as a Mexican General, unlawfully drawing salary and living allowances from the Union Army. For all these crimes the accused has made a full and spontaneous confession. Therefore we condemn him to be hung by the neck until dead... may the lord have mercy on his soul... proceed."

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Oh, yeah...they finally explained all the Chinese as well. I watched all these episodes with the subtitles on. All they said was (Chinese). Darn it.

I think I'll watch the River episode again before sending it back. I may even go back and watch the rest of the series in a month or two to see what I think with the details of the backstory in mind. The Chinese and the US are the only two superpowers left...hmm. Interesting concept.

"...wanted in fourteen counties of this state, the condemned is found guilty of crimes of murder, armed robbery of citizens, state banks and post offices; the theft of sacred objects, arson in a state prison, perjury, bigamy, deserting his wife and children, inciting prostitution, kidnapping, extortion, receiving stolen goods, selling stolen goods, passing counterfeit money and contrary to the laws of this state the condemned is guilty of using marked cards and loaded dice. Therefore, according to the powers vested in us, we sentence the accused before us, Tuco Benedicto Pacifico Juan Maria Ramirez..."

"Also known as "the rat."

...and any other aliases he might have, to hang by the neck until dead... may god have mercy on his soul... proceed."

(I loved Tuco. He was the perfect balance for Blondie and Angel Eyes. I also loved Leone's signature "war amongst the gods" philosophy for the spaghetti westerns that redefined the western genre. The same concept is applied in Cowboy Bebop and (to a lesser extent) in this show.)

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I somehow thought you knew it was chinese and were being puposefully obtuse by calling it "funny words." I'm not sure why I thought that, but it did seem a bit unusually cruel.

And for me an integral part of why I really like the show is the over arcing premise. The US and China are all that really stuck it out, and the only thing the US has that is uniquely US is cowboys so thats what we see mixed with the cultural refinement that thousands of years of existence brings the chinese. So maybe it just never occured to me that this wasn't plain to anyone else.

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Well there is a real mix of clothing styles in the various external world mise-en-scènes that suggests that more than just the US and China are still culturally prominent. Info in the extras state that the Chinese translations include more than just swearing and that some of it is quite humorous. It sounds kinda' like learning what it is Popeye is saying when he mumbles in the old Fleischer cartoons...

The extras also state that the US culture is dominant (as the majority of the language suggests) while Chinese is spoken by everyone, including the lowest, er, caste (I guess). So that would suggest the US had "won" whatever there was to win when Earth gets destroyed. (Say, this reminds me of a JP quote. Not quite finished with my umpteenth re-reading yet, though.)

"You think you can destroy the planet? My, what intoxicating power you must have. You can't destroy this planet. You can't even come close...

"Let me tell you about our planet. Our planet is four and a half billion years old. There has been life on this planet for nearly that long. Three point eight billion years. The first bacteria. And, later, the first multicellular animals, then the first complex creatures, in the sea, on the land. Then the great sweeping ages of animals - the amphibians, the dinosaurs, the mammals, each lasting millions upon millions of years. Great dynasties of creatures arising, flourishing, dying away. All this happening against a background of continuous and violent upheaval, mountain ranges thrust up and eroded away, cometary impacts, volcanic eruptions, oceans rising and falling, whole continents moving....Endless, constant and violent change...Even today the greatest geographic features on the planet comes from two great continents colliding, buckling to make the Himalayan mountain range over millions of years. The planet has survived everything in its time. It will certainly survive us..."

"Suppose there was [a radioactive accident]. Let's say we had a bad one, and all the plants and animals died and the earth was clicking hot for a hundred thousand years. Life would survive somewhere - under the soil, or perhaps frozen in Arctic ice. And after all those years, when the planet was no longer inhospitable, life would again spread over the planet. The evolutionary process would begin again. It might take a few billion year for life to regain its present variety. And of course it would be very different from what it is now. But the earth would survive our folly. Life would survive our folly. Only we think it wouldn't..

"My point is that life on earth can take care of itself. In the thinking of a human being, a hundred years is a long time......But to the earth a hundred years is nothing. A million years is nothing. This planet lives and breathes on a much vaster scale. We can't imagine its slow and powerful rhythms , and we haven't got the humility to try. We have been residents here for the blink of an eye. If we were gone tomorrow the earth won't miss us..."

"Lets be clear. The planet is not in jeopardy. We are in jeopardy. We haven't got the power to destroy the planet - or to save it. But we might have the power to save ourselves."

Now, Mr C, can I convince you to watch the new Battlestar Galactica? I find the characters and storyline to be more compelling than that of Firefly!

Maybe...understand that I don't have any TV reception now, so I'd only be able to get them on DVD from Netflix. Plus that's an awful lot of sci-fi for me... I did see a bit of one episode awhile back and I must say I was impressed with how much more adult-oriented it was than the original TV show.

I watched the River episode again last night. What a hoot! Jubal Early the disinterested, philosophical, kick-ass bounty hunter. (I wonder if he can pop disks into his chest, too?) Too cool. Much cooler than Boba Fett. (What is it with Boba Fett? Talk about a one note, useless character that was elevated way beyond his usefulness by fans...)

I first came across the name "Jubal" in Stranger in a Strange Land. Heinlein was apparently very interested in word etymology and he chose the name Jubal because it meant "father of all." (Which doesn't seem to fit this character particularly.)

This episode had a seminal image of River's character IMO:

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Objects in Space... man, I love that episode... since we seem to have similar thought processes, I'm not surprised that you enjoyed it too. Cool. Have you watch it with the commentary track on? I found it to be interesting too.

The new BSG is on dvd up to the end of season 2. That's alot of tv! Very good tv mind you, but if you have better things to do with your time I understand.

Commentary...track...? D'oh! I already sent it back. Did they all have one? Who did the commentary?

I did find out the local library has it, though. Alas, I think people train puppies on the more popular DVDs from the lib. I am forever using my DVD repair kit on the more widely circulated discs. (Fortunately, a lot of my tastes seem to be less than mainstream. No need to repair Sullivan's Travels.)

I actually put the mini-series for BG (which apparently precedes the series) on my NetFlix list. Further bulletins as events warrant.)

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Yes, I believe it was Whedon doing the commentary. I'll check to be certain.

As for BSG... if you were a fan of the original, you might want to move all of that to the back of your mind. It is similar in some ways, dissimilar in many more. Starbuck... is a tough female pilot. Ironic. But I think you'll enjoy it.

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I went back and watched Serenity again. It made slightly more sense, I guess, but it pretty well made sense the first time. Two minor things... First, didn't they imply that Earth had been destroyed in the series? ("Earth that was") In the movie, they just indicate that everyone left because of overpopulation. Second, why did Mal decide to bring River as one of the five people on the mule? He had never shown much interest in her before when she could have been used in the capacity. (Like when they went on the drifting ship that had been attacked by the Reavers - she came with them, but of her own volition.)

I also watched a lot of the BSG show I rented from Netflix. I really like the way they set that one up. Zoe should have been intro'd the way Starbuck was. You know right away who Starbuck is and have a pretty good idea about where she is going in the series. In fact, all of the character intros were well done IMO. Plus it's always nice to see Edward James Olmos in a good role. (Commander Adammit). They seem to have incorporated most of the characters from the old show, but re-characterized many of them and subtly shaded their pasts and interconnections for added plot possibilities. (Tell me the Daggit shows up eventually. They have to have the stupid Daggit, right?) Plus Gaius Baltar and the sublimated subconscious 6 is an interesting character. It's a pretty neat idea. (Although, why does she change clothes? She's a projected image, right? Gaius needs variety in his subconsciously chip-programmed projected image? You wouldn't think Cylons would be all that concerned with clothing to begin with.)

The use of the old technology from the old TV show is also well integrated. Very cool. They even give a nod (well, several nods) to the old Cylon Centurians. It uses stuff from the old show without making fun of it (like recent Brady Bunch movies) or being cloying (like the Starsky & Hutch movie) while at the same time not being slavishly devoted to it, allowing for the incorporation of technology that didn't exist when the original series was run.

It is quite adult, as I remembered from catching bits and pieces when I had TV reception. I don't exactly recall the tension between the military and civilians on the original show, but perhaps I just didn't notice it. It looks to be quite good - multi-faceted characters and multi-level plot possibilities. Thanks for the tip, Blackjohn.

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I watched the rest of the BSG: The Miniseries last night (3+ hours long!). That ending sequence where they're all making the jump to light speed with cover fire from the Gallactica is probably one of the best space battle sequences I can recall. George Lucas, for all his adding of ships and background to the space sequences to the new SW movies didn't capture what I perceive as the chaotic nature of dogfight battles interspersed with cover fire from capital ships as well as they did in this little mini-series. (Although the opening scenes of Episode 3 were pretty good.) Plus the tribal drums with minimalist musical touches really made it stand out for some reason. You wouldn't think primal drums would make any sense at all in a space battle, but it just seemed to work.

We also got another cool insight into Starbuck's character. I think she alone would make this series interesting to watch for me. Add Olmos and the Baltar character and it looks to be a worthwhile waste of time.

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Interests:My name is William Pace and I live and work as a graphic designer, illustrator and photographer in Northern Utah. I'm married to the lovely Tracy Pace and we have three children. In addition to all things art, I enjoy traveling and meeting new people from every walk of life. I've always been a fan of history, theology, and of course, Pyracy.